Over the last few months, I’ve been reading about The Cartoon Channel’s new live-action one-hour drama, Tower Prep [Tuesdays, 8/7C]. If people aren’t comparing it to Lost, they’re comparing it to Lost. Seriously. The series is about a student whose worst crime was to stand to a bully to make him leave his friend alone, and who wakes up the next morning in a dorm room with three other guys – all decked out in school uniforms. All he remembers – after being chewed out by a teacher; suspended for a week, and lectured by his parents – is playing an online game and connecting with a character that goes by Whisper 119. Then he turns on some tunes – which mutate into a buzzing noise, putting him to sleep.
The opening is strikingly similar to the opening of the classic mini-series, The Prisoner, in which an angry agent slams his resignation down on his boss’s desk, goes homes and is gassed – waking in a duplicate of his flat, but stuck un The Village – another place where everyone wears uniforms.
Like The Prisoner’s Village, Tower Prep School is very difficult to leave. If you head off in one direction, you come to an insanely tall wall; if you go the opposite direction, there are equally massive cliffs – and the school campus is subjected to a web of green laser lights that raise an alarm when they encounter a student. Top things off, there are the Gnomes. Now, I grant you that the Gnomes are not the semi-inflated oversized beachballs [called ‘Rover’] that kept the Prisoner from leaving the village. They are greater in number and wear helmets that appear to have two flashing lights [in mostly Christmas hues of green and red].
Our defender of bullies, Ian Archer [Drew Van Acker] soon learns that noobs are hazes. He’s sent to the Buffer zone where he becomes the target of the entire team – before he manages to fight them off and impressing Coach [Dan Payne] before being sent to orientation which closing to newcomers once it’s started. Thanks to a Monitor, though, Ian is able to fit meet the Headmaster and learn that Tower Prep is a school that has been designed for kids like him – kids that that feel out of step with there worlds.
He learns that Headmaster thinks the school’s program will benefit him – that it is, in fact, meant for students like him, who love a challenge. All this after being hazed by his new roommates – Don Finch [Calum Worthy], Ray [Richard Harmon] and Zack [Dejan Loyola], who responsible for sending him to the buffer zone and destroy his tunes and phone.
His mind is taken off his problems when he reports for his first class a bit late [and has a note passed to him saying “I’m scared, too.”] When his second attempt fails and he’s in danger of being overwhelmed by Gnomes, he encounters classmates CJ Ward [Elise Gatience], Suki Sato [Dyana Lu] and Gabe Lexington Forrest. With Gnomes all around them. Headmaster appears to be #2 – he’s in charge, but only until some overwhelming action from the more rebellious charges.
When Paul Dini came up with this idea, he must have just seen The Prisoner. There are far too many similarities for it to be dismissed. The major difference is that parents know where there their kids are, while no one on The Prisoner has any idea where he was.
Of course, to be truly diabolical, Tower Prep requires the students to actually attend classes. Classes that are usually a wee bit more demanding than the ones Ian is familiar with. There’s even a handy hideaway for the four to use as a secret base to plot there escape.
For all intents and purposes, Tower Prep is a an academically ambitious school, but its isolated position requires the answering of a few questions: if the school’s Program is so beneficial in dealing with the real world, why is it so isolated; in a shocking revelation, why do the kids’ parents know where they are – and what would happen if they were to escape?
One final note: when the school’s officials say the school is meant for students who are different, they aren’t kidding: Ian is [literally] a half-step ahead of the rest of the work; CJ can read body language like a second language; Suki can mimic anyone’s voice – even after hearing it only once, and even appear to be them if she can see them and wear their clothes, and Gabe can talk himself out of any situation [except for those involving Gnomes]. It’s safe to see that everyone at tower Prep must have one special skill, so it’ll be interesting to see in following eps.
Tower Prep is an ambitious series with more than a few mysterious folks to keep us interested – and plenty of intrigue. I want to know what happens next. As of now, Tower Prep is the best show on The Cartoon Network.
Final Grade: A-